


The ghosts you cast away

by saltedpin



Series: the sun also rises [2]
Category: Gintama
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, Multi, Pining, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, five things but they're all AUs, i'm really just indulging myself at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25850533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedpin/pseuds/saltedpin
Summary: Five ways it could have gone.(Please note!:this is a coda forThe kiss I would have spent on you– it doesn’t really stand alone)
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki, Hijikata Toshirou/Tsukuyo, Sakata Gintoki/Tsukuyo
Series: the sun also rises [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875760
Comments: 13
Kudos: 30





	The ghosts you cast away

**Author's Note:**

> As noted in the summary, this fic is just me writing a self-indulgent follow up to [The kiss I would have spent on you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21211952/chapters/50498366), and if you’d like to read it I really recommend going to read that fic first since it most likely doesn’t stand alone at all :)
> 
> The main thing I got out of writing that fic was that I wouldn’t know how I would want anything to end up between these guys, so I decided what the hey, I’ll write them all. 
> 
> (they’re all AUs and not all happening at once is what I’m saying – like Seita’s summer diary, you can choose your own adventure and decide which route you’d like to take :)
> 
> Thank you so much as always to Apathy and rabbit_habits for all their help and beta-ing, all mistakes are mine alone.

**I.**

Tsukuyo hates the wet season, the rain, the stifling air, the wet heat – all of it makes even night-time patrols almost intolerable. The humidity lies thick and heavy in the air, even in the pre-dawn hours, and her clothes cling to her, stuck to her sides with sweat even though she’s just spent most of her time moving slowly from rooftop to rooftop, street to street. The thought of going down into the heated press of bodies below makes her stomach turn, but the night will soon be over. She’s tired, and she’s ready to return to her room, with its lukewarm tap water and complete lack of air conditioning. 

The morning seems almost to be drawing itself up, as if waiting for the right moment to dawn – the thin, milky sunlight is struggling its way through the grey clouds that hang in the sky as Tsukuyo descends into the least busy part of Yoshiwara’s day, when most of its clientele have staggered their way home after their night-time revels but before the new day’s customers have arrived. 

But there are still enough people on the streets to make the heat of the bodies feel uncomfortably close, and Tsukuyo does her best to keep to side streets and alleys, avoiding both the stumbling, drunken men and the courtesans on their way back home, shielding their eyes from the rising sun behind their paper umbrellas. 

Tsukuyo can’t tell when it had begun to seem normal to her – this cycle of time, this setting of the sun and the rise of a new day, after the endless night that had been Housen’s rule. He had kept Yoshiwara held tight within his closed fist, blotting out all light, all hope, all life. Back then, Tsukuyo had never dared to dream she’d be free in the ways she is now, that Yoshiwara would ever be free. But at some point, she’d learned to expect the coming of the dawn every morning – and even to resent it a little, when the heat of the morning is as oppressive and sluggish as it is right now. 

She resists the urge to wipe her forehead with her sleeve even as sweat crawls slowly down her spine. When she gets home, she’ll put a damp cloth in the freezer and then press it to her forehead, allow herself the luxury of the coolest shower her plumbing can manage, and then she will sleep. 

She’s so focused on her goal that she almost doesn’t bother to give a second glance to the small knot of women crowded by a drinks machine on the side of the street. They don’t seem distressed, so it’s likely nothing Tsukuyo needs to concern herself with – at least until one of them, a Hyakka and not a courtesan, steps out of their huddle and notices her, her forehead creasing in mild concern. _That_ gets her attention, and she makes her way over, though her knees ache and her throat feels parched.

“What is it?” she asks, and the Hyakka hesitates, eyes flashing to the side at whatever lies in the middle of the huddle of women.

Tsukuyo doesn’t have the patience for this, and she sighs, turning to shoulder her way gently through the press of murmuring courtesans, wondering what on earth could have –

– _Ah._

In some ways, she supposes she shouldn’t be surprised. Men pass out with irritating regularity in the gutters of Yoshiwara. Usually they’re simply ignored – they’ll wake up on their own eventually – unless they’re causing an impediment to foot traffic, or, apparently, if they’re the saviour of Yoshiwara, Sakata Gintoki.

Tsukuyo stares down at him for a long moment, taking everything in – the lying face-down in the dirt of the street, the hand jammed under the drinks machine, no doubt rummaging around for someone else’s dropped change, the crumpled yukata, the stink of beer and sweat – and, not for the first time, wonders what on earth is wrong with her. 

“Tsukuyo.” The Hyakka – Umeko, Tsukuyo remembers now – whispers urgently in her ear. “What should I do? I can’t leave him there. I was trying to wake him when you came. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Tsukuyo hears herself reply, not taking her eyes off Gintoki’s prone form. She swallows. “I’ll deal with it.” 

Again, Umeko hesitates, but then she bows her head in a short, quick movement, before beginning to usher the courtesans away. Once they’re gone, Tsukuyo looks down at Gintoki’s unmoving body and resolutely does not sigh. 

Stepping forward, she pokes at his side with the toe of her boot, not particularly gently. “Oi. Gintoki. Wake up.”

The groan that issues forth from somewhere within him isn’t especially encouraging, but Tsukuyo gives him a moment before she nudges at his ribs again with her foot; when that has no effect, she purses her lips, then reaches down and grabs one of his limp wrists, pulling his arm over her shoulders and hauling him upright as she stands.

“Wha— who –” 

The movement seems to shake him into at least partial consciousness, his head rolling on his shoulders, eyes blinking until they fall on her face – and then he lets out another somewhat unflattering groan and lets them slip shut again. 

“I should have known.”

Tsukuyo grits her teeth, not bothering to be gentle as she starts down the footpath, dragging him with her. 

“Maybe you should have,” she says, and she doesn’t try to keep the irritation from her tone. The length of Gintoki’s body is warm against her side, _too_ warm, especially in this heat, and it’s all she can do not to dump him back where she found him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s spent the early morning hours in a heap by the side of the road; it wouldn’t even be the first time she’s found him there. But it _is_ the first time since he came back to Edo – the first time since he’s come _home_ – and that, for some reason, makes her reluctant to simply leave him where he lies, until children on their way to school wake him up by curiously poking at him with sticks to see if he’s dead. 

_Two years later,_ Tsukuyo thinks, _and he’s still doing this._ She’s not sure if it’s comforting or not, how little he’s changed – or at least, how little he appears to have changed.

Gintoki has never said what he did during those two years, and she’s never asked. She has no interest in prying or stepping into places she hasn’t been freely invited. Tsukuyo cannot begin to guess what might have happened during that time, but she can see all the things that are in his eyes, and all the things that no longer are. She, along with everyone else, has long since given up trying to sort out fact from rumour when it comes to Utsuro and what exactly had happened as the Edo Terminal collapsed. She could ask Otae, perhaps – she could even find Hijikata and ask him, though the thought makes her feel queasy. But to be honest, she isn’t even certain it makes any difference. There’s no answer they could give her that would change things. And she isn’t going to pry simply for the sake of it, especially when she already feels that she knows more than she would like about the things Gintoki had taken care to keep hidden. 

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asks abruptly, as much to stop the turn of her own thoughts as anything else. “Is this really how you’re choosing to spend your time? Face-down in a gutter?” 

“It’s like I said, I’ve decided to live like a fallen angel: I plummet where I may,” Gintoki slurs, stumbling a little over his own feet. “It can’t be helped – it’s my nature. It’s no use fighting against your nature. You couldn’t stop it if you tried.”

There’s nothing Tsukuyo can say to that, so she doesn’t say anything at all, though she’s too late to suppress the exasperated sigh that forces its way through her teeth as Gintoki starts tunelessly gurgling the lyrics to _Only Death Can Stop Me_ against the crook of her neck, his breath uncomfortably warm and damp against her already sweaty skin.

To be honest, Tsukuyo hadn’t thought much about where she would take Gintoki when she plucked him up off the street, except perhaps for _anywhere that isn’t here._ Now, she realises, she really only has one choice, though it makes her stomach churn to do it. Seita will have already left for temple school since he’s on duty as the teacher’s assistant this week, though Hinowa might be home… but Tsukuyo’s not sure why any of that should matter. She’s bringing Gintoki into the home they share so he can sleep off a hangover and no other reason. He’s been there enough times before. She has no reason to feel embarrassed about it. 

And yet, she still feels a strange tug in her chest as they turn a corner and Hinowa’s shopfront – closed for the moment – comes into view. She’s tempted to simply dump him in a still-open teahouse, but she already knows she won’t do that. She had, unfortunately, committed to her path from the moment she’d grabbed his wrist and dragged him to his feet.

At least he’s no longer singing by the time she gets the side door open – somehow, she manages to get both their boots off before she pulls him up into the hallway.

“Hinowa?” Tsukuyo calls as she stands there, feeling condensation gather on the arches of her feet against the relatively cool wood of the floor. There’s no answer, and she sets off again, pulling Gintoki into the tatami room she uses as a bedroom and letting him slide to the floor in a heap.

He doesn’t stir once he’s down there, and for a long moment Tsukuyo simply stares down at him, watching as his breath ruffles the hair that falls over his face. Despite everything, he looks peaceful like this – eyes closed, mouth slightly open, his side rising and falling with his deep, even breaths – and she feels her own breath flare within her. 

“Hey. Gintoki.” 

His eye cracks open. “What?” 

“What are you doing here? Why did you come?”

The rakish smile that snakes its way across Gintoki’s lips doesn’t reach his eyes. “You need to ask? Why do most men come to Yoshiwara? For the food?”

Tsukuyo can feel her jaw clench, but at the same time, she’s not sure what she expected. “Stay here. I’ll get you some water.” 

She can feel his eyes on her as she makes her way through the shouji to the washroom and reaches for a glass, holding it under the tap as it runs. Partially out of spite but partially also because she’s thirsty, she drinks down the first glass herself in long, satisfying gulps, closing her eyes as the water runs down her throat. The skin at the nape of her neck prickles as she washes the glass out, but she doesn’t turn around. 

“To be honest, I heard about something you can get in Yoshiwara that you can’t get anywhere else.” 

Tsukuyo doesn’t startle at the sudden sound of his voice; she simply continues to dry the glass with a paper towel, slow and methodical. “And what would that be?”

Gintoki’s laugh is low, and it doesn’t sound like whatever he’s laughing at is especially funny – maybe it’s himself. “Fresh water from a well that’ll heal whatever ails you. But the catch is that the well is inside a tigress’ den. You can’t draw it without first going inside.”

Tsukuyo swallows, reaching out to put the paper towel back down on the bench. “I’ve never heard of a place like that in Yoshiwara, and you’ve come to the wrong place if that’s what you were after. There’s only tap water here.” She pauses, looking down at her knuckles, pale where they still clench around the ball of towel. “Maybe if you hadn’t got drunk, you would’ve found it.” 

“Oi, oi. A man needs to build up his courage before going on a quest like that. You don’t just go barging into a tigress’ den without preparing yourself first.”

Tsukuyo blinks and, with effort, releases her fist from around the paper towel, turning on the tap and filling the glass. “Too bad it didn’t work out. Though maybe you have the right idea – no tiger who saw you would have you now. A tiger wouldn’t eat something so pathetic.” 

“Ah. Well. Maybe you’re right. It was worth the gamble though, wasn’t it?”

 _Not really,_ she wants to tell him – but somehow, she doesn’t have it in her just now. She’s bone tired, and the humidity is stifling. Her tongue darts out over her lower lip, and she finds she has to take a breath before she can turn to face him. 

She crosses the room, putting the glass of water down by his head. “Drink it.” 

He sits up enough to gulp it down without complaining, before passing the empty glass back to her. She doesn’t let her fingers brush against his as she takes it from him, turning and going back to the washroom to refill it. 

“To be honest, I’m tired of it.” Gintoki’s voice has lowered to a kind of belligerent mumble, and when Tsukuyo glances back over her shoulder, he’s lying down again, one arm slung over his eyes. She doesn’t ask him what he means, but after a moment, he continues on anyway. “I’m tired of letting things slip through my fingers. I used to think the tighter I tried to hold them, the faster I’d lose them. It got so I didn’t even want to reach out for them to begin with. But now…”

Tsukuyo’s pulse skitters, racing through her veins. She half-turns, but in the end, she can’t quite bring herself to look at him. _Reach for something else,_ she wants to tell him. Does he even realise what else – who else – he could be reaching for? Has Hijikata ever told him – _would_ he ever tell him? Would Gintoki ever guess it? 

Pressing her lips together, she forces herself to go through the mechanical process of filling the glass with water again, turning, and crossing the room. Once again, she places the glass down by his head. That done, she opens the cupboard and yanks the futon down, laying it out flat beside him. 

“Get yourself onto the futon and go to sleep,” she says. She’s tired enough that she could sleep on the floor herself, though just the thought of a blanket on her in this heat is enough to make her skin crawl. 

She’ll shut him in here and go sleep in the next room, sitting on a bench with her head resting on her arms on the table, she decides – it’s far from the worst place she will have slept. Turning away, she pads across the room towards the shouji. 

“Stay.”

Tsukuyo freezes. Gintoki’s voice is soft, and she thinks he must still be drowsy with drink, but when she glances back over her shoulder at him, his eyes are half-lidded, watching her with quiet, careful intensity. It’s a look she’s only seen occasionally, along with the other expressions she’s noticed when the flat, dead-eyed stare lifts, and she sees what lies just below the surface of him: the weariness, the regret. The gentleness, the kindness, and the cold and terrifying anger.

“You’re tired,” Gintoki says after a moment. “Stay. Rest.”

“I’ll be fine out there,” she says, forcing the words past her lips, but she can already feel her resolve beginning to crumble, her reluctant, failing resistance not strong enough to say no a third time, if he asks her again.

In the end, he doesn’t need to.

It seems strange that after two years, this thing inside her heart should stir like this, as if all this time it has simply slept – dormant, silent, but still alive and waiting to be called to. In the moment before she turns and makes her way back across the room, Tsukuyo wonders if Hijikata could blame her. 

She doesn’t look at him as she settles on the futon, lying on her side, her back to him. They had slept in the same room before, the night after she killed Jiraia – but it hadn’t meant anything then, or at least, she hadn’t thought so. And she’d been drunk then, too, so she hadn’t even remembered falling asleep – she’d simply slipped into it before she’d even realised she was tired and woken up the next morning with a pounding head, a parched, sore throat, and a strange emptiness in her chest. Perhaps, though, if she hadn’t been quite so hungover, she wouldn’t have been able to ask Gintoki what she’d asked him: _Say… do you think if I didn’t have this scar on my face, I would’ve been able to live a different life?_

She almost wishes she had something to drink now. Despite the stifling warmth of the room, she can feel the heat of Gintoki’s body where he lies behind her; she can almost imagine she can feel the beat of his heart, radiating outwards from his chest. She takes a breath – and after a moment, when his hand brushes against her shoulder, it’s almost as if she’s been waiting for it to happen. 

She feels her blood rushing to the surface of her skin to meet the touch of Gintoki’s fingers lying against her bare shoulder, and she closes her eyes. 

He doesn’t say anything as she rolls towards him, but that has always been one of the things she likes about Gintoki’s company. For all the times he never shuts up, he has always known when to be silent. Her thoughts are too tender, too confusing to be put into words – but then, what has ever been the use of speaking them aloud anyway? What is there to say? At one time, this would have been the culmination of everything she thought she wanted, but now, there’s also the sharp pain of disappointment in her chest, disappointment in herself, that she is only flesh and blood after all. But in the end, that’s all any of them are, and she hopes Hijikata will one day forgive her for it. 

Tsukuyo releases a breath as she rests her forehead against his chest, just as the early morning light begins to seep its way through the cracks in the corners of the windows. As she spreads her fingers beneath his collarbone, she wonders if the peacefulness she has been grasping after will ever come, or if it will remain forever hovering just beyond her reach. 

**II.**

It’s the kind of cold that seems to lie heavy in the air, even despite the warmth of the festival lanterns and the crush of the crowds as they move through the streets, holding their red candles and sipping their thick, sweet sake. The last day of the festival is always the busiest, Tsukuyo thinks – she’d wanted to come earlier, but Seita had, as usual, left all his homework to the last minute and the condition of going had been that he get it finished first.

Tsukuyo doesn’t need to ask him if he got help: it’s obvious he did. His handwriting has neatened up over the past two years, but whoever wrote up half his composition task still seems to be imitating his handwriting from when he was younger, and sloppily and inconsistently at that. Tsukuyo knows who did it – she can just imagine the story Seita spun him too, how tyrannical Tsukuyo was being in keeping him from the festival when _everyone else was going,_ and _why do I need to know this stuff anyway,_ and _it’s unfair, the whole world is so unfair!_ Two years later, and Gintoki is the same as ever in that regard – he still can’t walk past an injustice in progress. 

Tsukuyo knows she could have asked Seita some pointed questions – _You seem to have developed some unusually strong opinions about non-24-hour pachinko parlours_ – and torn up the forged composition and told Seita to do it himself this time, but something in her couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Maybe she’s growing soft, which is something she’ll have to watch – but for now, she’s content to have relaxed her stringent rules for just one evening, so she can spend it walking amongst the game stalls and food stands, Hinowa making slow steps on her crutches on one side of her, and Seita twisting impatiently on the other. 

She ignores him as he sighs, obviously feeling constrained by their presence, gazing longingly as a group of children his own age skitter past them, laughing, kitsune masks on the backs of their heads and no adult supervision in sight. When he turns to look up at her, Tsukuyo already knows the wide-eyed, beseeching expression she’ll see on his face.

“Tsukuyo-nee, please can I –” 

“No. We just arrived,” she says placidly. “Let’s at least enjoy the festival together for a little while.”

She smiles inwardly at Seita’s sigh – she’s not gone so soft, after all. Seita can come to the festival, but that doesn’t mean he can have any fun. Not until he completes his compositions without any outside help, whether it’s from Gintoki or from anyone else. 

Swallowing, Tsukuyo finds herself inadvertently wondering if he’s here tonight, though she’s vowed she’ll stop looking for him when she heads into Edo. She’s never really _looked_ for him, anyway – that would imply she’s gone out of her way. She never has, though, since she has no interest in putting herself in his way. But every now and then, she finds her head turning when she sees a flash of white kimono in the corner of her vision, her breath catching, her heart hammering as if she’s being chased. 

It’s the same now, she thinks, frustrated with herself as her eye catches the light as it slides through a tousle of silver hair – but on turning, she finds it’s just the wig of some cosplaying teenager, her arm looped through her friend’s. The sound of raucous male laughter snaps her head around to her left, fingers twitching for her tantou in case of trouble, before she remembers she’s not in Yoshiwara tonight, and even if there _were_ men causing a fuss, it wouldn’t be her problem to deal with.

They bustle past a moment later, a knot of men laughing and leaning on each other tipsily, smelling of sweat and alcohol. Tsukuyo glances at them briefly, recognising them as off-duty Shinsengumi – she’s seen the bald one around, anyway, and she assumes the rest of them are his compatriots. She sees the way Seita looks after them in an almost longing way – they’re _men,_ they’re not tied by anyone’s apron strings – but she wonders if he would still look after them so enviously if he knew they were Shinsengumi, given how long it had taken him to warm to Hijikata back then. 

“Can I get you anything to eat?” Seita asks a moment later; clearly, he thinks that if he puts on a show of being polite, he’ll be given his leave earlier than if he sulks. 

“So you can run away with the money I give you and buy game tickets? I don’t think so,” Tsukuyo says loftily, though she doesn’t think Seita would actually dare to do such a thing. 

“I wouldn’t!” he protests, before he sees he’s being made fun of and pouts. “I just wanted –”

“I know, Seita,” Hinowa cuts in, giving Tsukuyo a look and a slight raise of her eyebrow that says, _Don’t you think he’s been punished enough?_ “Was there a game you wanted to play, though?”

Seita looks wary, as if he’s not certain whether to trust this sudden kindness. “Yeah, but –” He hesitates, swallowing before he goes on, “But if you were going to give me some money for tickets, I – I told Izumi-chan that I’d win something for her.” 

“Ah, for _Izumi-chan,_ ” Hinowa says, nodding, her voice exaggeratedly light and knowing, and Tsukuyo wonders if the look had been meant to convey instead that _she_ was going to take over punishing Seita for his act of dishonesty. “Izumi-chan this, Izumi-chan that; everything’s been Izumi-chan lately. It’s almost as if you’d rather spend time with her than with us. But I’m sure that can’t be the case, can it, Seita?” 

“No! It’s not that!” Seita says, his voice rising in something close to panic, but Hinowa has already decided to let him off gently and is reaching into her sleeve for her purse. 

“There,” she says, giving Seita more money than Tsukuyo would have given him. “Win Izumi-chan something nice.” 

Seita has barely gabbled out his incredulous thanks before he darts away, disappearing into the crowd. Tsukuyo sighs as she watches him go. 

“You’re going to spoil him.”

“No, I’m not,” Hinowa says with equanimity, her eyes resting fondly on the gap in the crowd Seita had disappeared through. She turns, smiling. “But I am a little tired. Will you get me something to eat while I rest?” 

Tsukuyo buys Hinowa a cup of amazake to warm her hands around and then goes looking for the takoyaki she requested. The air is thick with the smell of smoke, motsuni, yakitori, freshly cooked rice and grilled caramel, and Tsukuyo moves between the stalls looking for takoyaki, but she’s distracted in the end by a shout from the goldfish-scooping stand. She turns to see a stream of red hair and enraged blue eyes, and has just enough time to realise it’s Kagura before she’s gone again, chasing after a light-haired man who weaves through the crowds like a twisting snake, laughing lowly. A moment later Shinpachi follows her, calling out _Kagura-chan –_

Tsukuyo swallows. _If Kagura and Shinpachi are here, then –_

She cuts the thought off. In the past, it might have been true, but Kagura and Shinpachi are older now, and don’t hang off Gintoki’s sleeves like they used to. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 

Turning, she rubs her hands together, feeling the cold suddenly; her breath clouds in the crisp, clean air in front of her as she walks. She wishes she could light her kiseru, though she doesn’t want to keep Hinowa waiting while she finds a smoking area. She’s come to the end of the food stalls now, though, and there are only a few small game stands here, crowded by small children and one or two parents. But there’s an alley to her left; it would be easy enough to slip down it, light her pipe and take a quick draw, and then resume the hunt for takoyaki. 

Before she has time to think better of it, she slides into the shadow between the muted orange lights of the festival and the harsh white brightness of a lantern hung on the eaves further down the alley. She’s just reaching into her sleeve when she hears the scrape of a shoe against stone. Guiltily, she looks up, ready to slip out the way she came before the two people she hadn’t noticed in the alley can come closer and see her – at least until they move slightly into the white light at the end of the alley, and it brilliantly illuminates the tangle of silver hair she’d know anywhere – 

Her breath catches, heart thudding. She almost calls out to him – to them – but at the last moment, something stills her voice in her throat as their faces are caught in a sliver of light. 

She knows them both, she realises – of course she does. She’d spent enough time in Gintoki’s company to recognise him just by the set of his shoulders; Hijikata she hadn’t come to know well until later, but then, of course, she’d come to know him very well – too well, for either of their comfort. She watches as Hijikata glances back over his shoulder, face shrouded by shadows once more, as Gintoki stands beside him, his breath freezing in the air as soon as it leaves his lips. Tsukuyo swallows, her heart suddenly filling with a kind of dread she can’t put a name to. She wants to draw back, but finds herself unable. 

Hijikata mutters something in a voice so low she can’t make out the words, even in the close confines of the alley. Gintoki doesn’t answer him, though – he just stays where he is, quiet, watchful, and if it weren’t for his fist clenched at his side, Tsukuyo might almost think he was calm. She hears the same scrape of a shoe against the cold stone of the alley as Hijikata begins to turn away, only to stop when Gintoki takes a step towards him. 

They stand, facing each other, and she watches as the clouds of their breath drift together, pale in the light of the lantern behind them. There’s a moment when Hijikata turns his head, his silhouette widening as he begins to turn away again, but it’s only a moment before Gintoki’s hand comes up, catching his chin and tilting it up – 

She turns away. She doesn’t need to see it to know. 

There is anger settling in her chest alongside the cold, heavy thud of her heart. Her breath struggles to rise past it, even as she knows, she _knows_ , she's not being fair. Would she have turned away? Would she have raised her hand to catch Gintoki’s fingers, ducked her head to evade when he leaned in? Or, if Gintoki had not been there, would she have again told Hijikata that what they were doing was a mistake, and walked away from him a second time?

She knows the answer to that. She knows what she would have done if she had been standing there in the cold, the bright light of the lantern behind her, and what she wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to do.

Tsukuyo’s eyes feel dry in the cold as she makes her way back out into the street, the bustle of the crowd, the glow of the candles and the paper lanterns; she has never been one for weeping and especially not when Hinowa will see it. It’s what she wanted, after all. She’s not such a hypocrite as to forget what she said – what she’d told Hijikata before he’d left Edo. 

By the time she finds her way back to Hinowa where she sits on a bench, her cheeks pink from the cold and the sweet sake she’s drunk, eyes bright, hands hidden inside her haori, Tsukuyo finds her anger has dissipated, leaving behind it only a long, painful line of tension that runs from her gut to her throat. Perhaps it would be easier if she were angry, the bright, furious anger she remembers from her childhood, before Jiraia had taken her in and saved her from her eventual fate at the hands of Housen – the same fate as all girls who’d been sold to Yoshiwara who could not be brought to heel. They were broken or they were killed; she had always thought she’d be killed, since she’d known she would not break, and in her anger, she’d always thought she would have preferred that. 

Tsukuyo had seen her own anger reflected in Jiraia, in his rage at a world that rejected him – in the bitterness in his heart that had slowly carved away at it, until there’d been nothing left of the man who’d taken her in, who’d trained her in his own image. But Tsukuyo at least has not let her own anger hollow her out in the same way, has never raged or lost sight of the things that she vowed she’ll always protect.

Blinking, she tips her face up to look at the stars, cold and pale and distant, barely visible between the strings of orange lanterns.

Perhaps it had always been silly, something better left unspoken – something that would occasionally slide into the silences between the words they spoke to each other, and that was all. But even if it had been silly, it had been hers – though, Tsukuyo supposes, it’s hers now more than ever, something that is for her alone, something that never needs to be touched by the light of day. She’s never been someone who needs to express these things. She’s never had any illusions that love needs to be returned or even acknowledged, or that this makes any difference. In her heart, she knows she’d still follow Gintoki into any fight, onto any battlefield. That’s the vow she made, and she intends to stand by it. This makes no difference, none at all. 

When she comes to sit down by Hinowa on her bench, she folds her hands on her lap and looks down at them. Her knuckles are red with cold, the pale scars across them smooth amidst her goose-pimpled skin. They look calm. In time, she thinks she might feel calm too. But for a moment, just a moment, it’s so easy to imagine herself there, to put herself into that silhouette – into that half-turn and that eventual surrender – and she doesn’t think anyone would blame her for that. And she wonders if the next time she sees them, she’ll be able to see it in their eyes, in the way they are around each other. 

She closes her eyes, feeling her lashes rest on her cheek.

“Tsukki?” Hinowa’s voice is soft, concerned. “Is everything all right? What’s wrong?”

Tsukuyo opens her eyes, turns to her, and smiles. “Nothing’s wrong, Hinowa. It’s nothing.” 

**III.**

“It was Kasumi who got the information. I’m just passing it on.” 

Tsukuyo looks down at the piece of paper in front of her, her eyes skimming over dates, numbers, ship names. There’s nothing much – certainly nothing to suggest criminality – but she knows Kasumi is a skilled enough courtesan to know when a client is doing more than just big-noting himself to impress her, and she trusts Etsuko, sitting across from her now, not to bring her things like this unless she thinks there might be something to it.

“It’ll need investigating, though,” Etsuko adds, in the short silence that follows. “And obviously, the cargo – if there is any – is heading to places other than Yoshiwara.”

Tsukuyo nods, reaching for her kiseru. She lights it, breathing in a long, slow draw. “Does anyone else know?”

Etsuko shakes her head. “No – just you, me, and Kasumi. She wrote everything down as soon as the client was drunk enough to fall asleep. She says she thinks she remembers everything correctly.” 

Taking another draw on her kiseru, Tsukuyo taps the points of her fingers on the handwritten page, looking down at it. She already knows into whose hands this will need to be delivered. The Shinsengumi have been reinstated after their two-year absence and have picked up more or less where they left off… and perhaps, she thinks, she knows who will treat information from the Hyakka with the attention it deserves, even if it first came from a courtesan. 

Tsukuyo swallows, the smoke from her pipe dwindling as she balances it in her fingers. It’s been too long since she last saw Hijikata, she thinks – not since the gathering at Snack Smile, and then they hadn’t really spoken. She hadn’t asked him what he’d done while he’d been stationed in the middle of nowhere; she hadn’t asked him if he’d found Gintoki there, in the ruins of the school that had once been his home. At the time, it had been enough that he’d been back – that both of them –

“I can take it, if you like,” Etsuko says cautiously, interrupting her thoughts, her eyes watchful from above the black mask that covers the lower half of her face. 

Tsukuyo glances up, blinking, realising that Etsuko has misunderstood the reason for her hesitation – that she may not want to take personal responsibility for information that may be faulty, even if, as the leader of the Hyakka, the responsibility would come back to Tsukuyo either way. Nonetheless, Tsukuyo appreciates that Etsuko is looking to save her from potential embarrassment. She knows the puckered scar that runs across Etsuko’s face from cheek to chin – she had put it there herself after all, after Etsuko had tried to run when Housen had told her he planned to allow one of the retired Shougun’s former generals to buy out her contract. Tsukuyo can still remember pressing her forehead to the mat in front of Housen as she apologised – _She ran, and I killed her. I’m sorry I couldn’t resolve it another way_ – and Housen’s disinterested response: _It’s nothing. One fewer troublesome woman. He’ll find another who’ll be less wilful._

Etsuko has been loyal to her ever since, and Tsukuyo knows she could send her with this to the Shinsengumi. There’d be no impropriety there, and the Hyakka have earned their place in Edo, not that they ever needed to. 

But something in her bridles at the thought of sending someone else. He’ll know she could have come herself and chose not to – there are any number of reasons why she might not, and she knows Hijikata will most likely assume she was too busy. But _she_ will know the real reason, and in the end, it’s only her own conscience she has to answer to. 

He had come to her, after all, after what had happened between them in that crumbling bathhouse. He’d come to tell her he was leaving Edo, despite the fact she didn’t believe he owed her anything, certainly not an explanation, and least of all, the thing he’d tried to tell her when he’d said – 

Tsukuyo presses her hands down on the paper, pulling it across the table towards her. 

“Thank you, Etsuko. I’ll deal with it myself.”

The sun is setting as she makes her way above ground and into the streets of Edo. After living the majority of her life under the sealed roof of Yoshiwara, the sunset is still a novelty to her, still something she finds it difficult to tear her gaze from as she walks. The stars are up by the time she reaches the gates of the Shinsengumi compound, and a chill is in the air – the gates are closed, of course, the lantern outside illuminating them, and she hesitates. 

She has never come here before – and certainly not with the intent of requesting an interview with the Demon Vice Commander of the Shinsengumi. Hijikata, in the past, had always come to her, much to her surprise, or else they’d met somewhere in the wreckage of the Edo streets. 

It seems ridiculous, to give in to the unease that winds its way through her chest, but Tsukuyo realises now that it had been impulsive to come here – as if she had been trying to prove to herself that she was not afraid of facing him, of reckoning with the things unfinished that still lingered between them. 

Closing her eyes, she clenches her fists and takes a breath. _There is nothing unfinished. There was nothing that even began._ She can’t even say she thinks of it often – not often enough for it to matter, anyway. She had said it was a mistake at the time, and he had agreed. It doesn’t matter, then, if she’s sometimes woken in the night, the memory of warmth on her lips and blood on her tongue, her back arching, her breath gasping in her throat – 

Tsukuyo swallows and forces her eyes open once more, making herself stare at the bright circle of light in the lantern until she has to blink away tears, her mind wiped blank. 

She could sneak in, she supposes – the Shinsengumi compound might be patrolled, but it’s not exactly designed to repel anything other than a frontal attack. She could be over the wall and making her way through the shadowed engawa before anyone knew she was there, and it would save her the trouble of having to explain herself or bring Hijikata under any scrutiny. 

It would be the easiest way, she decides, even as she’s already skimming up the timber of the outer wall, feet light, taking only a moment to rest on the top of the fence before she descends into the shadows of the courtyard. 

She drops into a crouch, waiting. There’s no sound, no movement, other than the soft trickle of water as it slowly fills the souzu, and she waits until it has fallen, the sharp clap of sound echoing through the courtyard, before she stands – but as soon as she rises she hears the scrape of a sword being unsheathed behind her, the strike of two footsteps against the stone of the walk, and she ducks only just in time to feel the slipstream of a blade as it passes by her ear. Her kunai is in her hand before she’s finished turning, the edge raised to block the blade as it falls a second time, inches from her neck. 

Tsukuyo shoves the sword away – she’s already got his measure, speed over strength – and curses herself for not simply swallowing her pride and knocking on the front gate, but the third strike she’s expecting never comes. She pauses, drawing back, but the swordsman, whoever he is, just blinks at her, before lowering his blade. 

“Oh. It’s you.” 

She recognises him now: that boy, Okita Sougo, the Shinsengumi first captain, back again from the two years he’d spent as an assassin after Hijikata had left Edo. Though, judging from the look in his eyes now – the look of a cat deprived of a kill – it was a line of work that might have suited him better. 

Tsukuyo draws herself up with as much dignity as she can manage, having been caught sneaking into somewhere she isn’t supposed to be, and hopes that the flush of her cheeks isn’t visible in the moonlight. 

“I wanted to see the Vice Commander.”

Okita’s eyebrow arches sharply, his expression plainly incredulous. “You snuck in here to see Hijikata.” 

Tsukuyo only just manages not to purse her lips, but she swallows, and she can feel her face glowing hotter in the cool air.

“No – it’s not that. I have some information for him. I was coming here to pass it on. That’s all.”

“Information.” Okita’s voice is flat, though she thinks she can hear some amusement skirting around the edges of it. “Speaking of information, you know he’s started batting for the other team, right?”

Tsukuyo blinks, her mouth dropping open, her mind blank with surprise, but before she can find anything to say – anything to _think_ – Okita has continued on: “Wait. I’ll get him for you.” Barely pausing, he raises his hand, cupping it around his mouth, before bellowing across the compound, “ _Hijikata-san._ The woman you ordered from Yoshiwara is here.”

There’s a _snap_ as a screen in the east building is shoved open, and Hijikata appears in the doorway a moment later, outlined in the bright yellow light from inside his room.

“Sougo! What the hell are you –” His eyes fall on her, and he stops. “Oh.” 

Standing in the shaft of light that radiates from his doorway, Tsukuyo suddenly feels tremendously exposed – which was exactly what she didn’t want to happen, of course, but she supposes she’d been foolish to think this would go any other way. 

“I just need to talk to you,” she finds herself blurting out, her voice seeming very loud in the silence of the courtyard, between Hijikata’s surprise and Okita’s smug stare. 

Hijikata’s eyes flick between them before he steps back a little into the room, gesturing – she thinks – for her to follow; in any case, she crosses the courtyard and steps out of her boots and onto the engawa, refusing to look back at Okita’s hovering presence, even when Hijikata leans out of the doorway and yells, “And you, Sougo – shut up and get back to patrol.”

Tsukuyo thinks she hears a quiet, amused _tch_ drifting in from the courtyard in the moment before Hijikata slams the shouji shut again. She stands uncertainly on the tatami, and the words _I’m sorry_ rise in her throat, but she swallows them down again. She won’t apologise for being here, no matter what others might think. But she genuinely hadn’t meant to cause a fuss. Even so, she feels the thrill of a trespasser as she stands here, glancing about the room, taking it in the way Jiraia had taught her – looking around for anything that could be turned to her advantage in a fight. The room isn’t as brightly lit as it had seemed from the darkness of the courtyard, and the cupboard is slightly open, his futon folded neatly inside. Perhaps he’d been about to lay it out when she arrived. 

“I don’t mean to intrude,” she settles on saying, half-turning towards him as he leaves the doorway and pads across the room.

He glances at her, though his face is unreadable. “You’re not.”

He doesn’t ask her why she’s here, what the information she has for him is. In the corner of the room is a table, with two neat piles of paperwork, an inkstone, a brush, a capped hanko and an ashtray; he picks the last one up and gestures for her to sit as he does so himself, placing the tray between them on the mat. 

“I don’t have anything to offer you,” he says, before glancing at the door, frowning slightly. “I could call for tea…”

“No, thank you. It’s fine.”

Tsukuyo looks at him closely as she settles herself, trying to see signs of the two years that have passed on his face – and she wonders if they’re visible on hers. Hijikata looks tired, but that’s no different. His face looks the same in the orange flare as he lights a cigarette, and when he raises his eyes to hers, Tsukuyo finds she has to look away, reaching into her sleeve for her kiseru. Uncomfortably, she finds Okita’s words – _You know he’s started batting for the other team, right?_ – running through her mind, and she wonders, briefly, what Okita knows – or if, perhaps, there’s anything _to_ know, beyond what she already discerned two years ago. 

She glances up at him now, swallowing – but when she catches his eye, she knows, somehow, that there isn’t. It feels like there would be more change in him, though she has no idea what kind of change she means or why it would be any of her business even if there was. 

A strange, uneasy apprehension shivers through her, but Tsukuyo feels herself unwilling to break the silence just yet; they had spent more hours in silence, after all, than they ever had in talking. That had been two years ago, though, and even though it may not show on Hijikata’s face, Tsukuyo knows that things have changed since then. 

“It may be nothing,” she begins abruptly, setting aside her kiseru and reaching into her sleeve again to retrieve the paper Etsuko had given her, passing it to him. She lights her pipe as he looks it over, breathing in the thin smoke, letting it fill her. “But I thought I should bring it to you. Just in case.”

Hijikata nods, eyes sharp as they flick over the page, before he folds it and puts it carefully in the sleeve of the dark yukata he’s wearing. “Thank you. I’ll see to it.”

She’d seldom been wrong in the past – perhaps that’s enough for him to trust her now. Tsukuyo nods, extracting the last breath of smoke from her kiseru, exhaling as she gently taps it on the edge of the ashtray, the powdery residue joining his cigarette butts at the bottom. She’d hardly smoked any of it, and it had burned away to nothing while she hadn’t been looking. She isn’t sure what she’s waiting for – surely not more words, especially not when she can’t force her own out of her mouth. Even something simple like _It’s good to see you again_ feels too weighted to let free: it would feel like dropping a stone into a well and waiting, waiting, waiting for the resultant splash when it struck the water in the darkness below, if it came at all.

She should go now, she knows. She’s done what she came here to do, and there’s no reason for her to linger. She has nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, but that’s no reason to stay here, in the awkward, enclosing silence of Hijikata’s rooms.

Tsukuyo is about to rise and tell him she’ll be off then, when he swallows and looks up at her suddenly, hands clenched on his knees. 

“You’ve been well, have you?”

Surprise keeps her silent for a moment, but then she nods. “Of course. And you?”

She cringes internally at the tone of her own voice, at the strange artificiality of their conversation after everything they had – that had happened. After the things they’d known about each other; after the places her mind has sometimes wandered to during his absence; after the cold, piercing pain she’d felt in her chest on hearing the official story that he’d been demoted in disgrace and sent to live out his days as the lowly, provincial nobody he always should have been. He’s back now, though – everyone is back. Things are as they always should have been, as if they’d never changed.

 _They have, though,_ Tsukuyo thinks, looking down at the ashtray as Hijikata crushes out his finished cigarette. Things are different, and she cannot tell if it’s a good or a bad thing. 

Hijikata doesn’t answer her question, and when she raises her eyes to his face again, she sees his throat move as he swallows. There’s tension in the way he holds himself, in his silence, even in the quick flick of his thumb as he lights another cigarette. 

“Your hair,” he says – or mumbles, really, around the cigarette in his mouth, gesturing in the general direction of her head. 

Tsukuyo raises her hand to it. She’d grown it long again, for reasons she’s not certain of herself. After a moment, she realises what Hijikata means, though – part of it has been knocked out of its fastenings and hangs down her neck, against her skin. It must have happened when Okita swung his blade at her; it had been a closer-run thing than she’d thought. A moment later, her probing fingers find the edges of some severed strands, and she pulls them out without thinking, looking at them lying in her palm. 

“Ah.” She lets the strands of hair trickle through her fingers and into the ashtray, feeling a small stab of regret. “I’ll have to get Hinowa to neaten it again.”

“I liked it short anyway,” Hijikata says almost absently, and her breath half-catches in her throat, her tongue running over her lower lip. Her skin prickles into goosebumps beneath her sleeves, and she stares at him, wondering for a moment if she’d heard him right – but so what if she had? He’d only said he liked her hair. She tries to catch his eye, but he’s already dropped his gaze, as if he’s trying to ignore his own words. 

“Oh,” she stutters out a moment later, not certain if the shiver that runs down her spine is pleasure or dread. It’s discouraging, she supposes, that after all this time, she’s still as unable as ever to take a compliment about her appearance. “Well. Thank you.” 

She tips her head forward to hide her blush, scraping her hair back up as best she can – but it won’t stay, and she huffs in frustration as more of it flops down against her neck. She hears a soft sound, and looking up, she realises Hijikata is _laughing_ at her – that same low, dry rasp she’d heard through the curtain of the entryway to her home the first time he’d come to ask for her help. 

“What?” she snaps at him, sounding angrier than she feels, pulling her hands away and letting her hair fall. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s nothing. I’m sorry.” He reaches forward and stubs out his only half-smoked cigarette before rising to his knees. “Let me help.”

Tsukuyo blinks at him, pulling in a quick, sharp breath and almost drawing away from him – but in the end, she forces herself to stay where she is as he moves to kneel behind her. She swallows, dropping her head forward, biting her lip since she knows he can’t see her face. Her hands clench where they rest on her knees, her spine rigid with tension, her skin prickling. 

Involuntarily, her mind flies back to the last – the second-last – time they’d seen each other, in the bathhouse of the deserted mansion after that last bloody fight; his hands had been in her hair then, too, the moment before she had leaned forward and –

His fingers skim over the nape of her neck, warm and calloused, and she shudders, her stomach simmering with a tension so great it borders on painful. She wants to close her eyes, but she leaves them relentlessly open, wondering if he can see the way the fringe of hair that falls down over her forehead is trembling. 

Tsukuyo feels something within her reaching out for him, like a phantom limb, grasping, and the danger that she had detected that first night on the docks rises once more in her mind. She feels the weight of everything they did and everything they didn’t do back then pressing heavily upon her – and it has taken her this long to realise that she’s uncertain which part of it she regrets: the doing, or the not doing. 

From the corner of her eye she watches his shadow on the wall as his hand lingers a moment, raised behind her head after her hair is fastened in place; watches the momentary splay of his fingers as they hover over her shoulders, before his hands drop back to his sides.

“It’s done.” 

“Thank you.” Her voice is soft, and it doesn’t tremble. That much, at least, she can be certain of. What she’s less certain of is the itch under her skin – the itch to turn and face him, to raise her hands, to put an end to things, one way or another, after two years pushing it to the back of her mind, and the equally powerful impulse to rise, to cross the room to the door and leave without looking back.

She can’t say what makes her turn in the end – perhaps it’s that she’s sick of hiding these things inside herself, even as the idea of pulling them into the light terrifies and disconcerts her; but Hijikata has already seen those hidden truths within her, hasn’t he? The things she kept so guarded within her heart – the things she told herself she was content to keep a secret – they’ve both seen it all in each other already, the raw, exposed nerve that runs through them both. So why not this too? 

She presses the flat of her palm against his chest, lifting her head, but still it’s almost a surprise a moment later when his hand cups her jaw, his lips pressing against hers. It’s only for a moment though, before Hijikata pulls back, his breath a quiet rasp as he looks down at her; he’s only just begun to say _I’m sorry,_ when she leans forward again, her hand sliding up his arm to settle in the crook of his elbow, her eyes sliding shut. 

Tsukuyo isn’t sure what she’s chasing in the kiss – the two years that have passed, maybe, or the dreams of things she realises will never come to pass, the things she realises have slipped away and will never return. 

But perhaps it’s none of those things – perhaps, after all, it’s just that there’s no point in hiding now, here, away from the view of the outside world. Her caution falls away as the room closes around them, and it’s easy for her to believe, in this moment at least, that there’s nothing beyond this – that this is what she wants, and is all she’s ever wanted. 

**IV.**

It isn’t that she doesn’t trust Seita – he’s been sent out on errands before when he was much younger than he is now, and Tsukuyo knows that, in general, he carries them out with relatively minimal dawdling. Rather, it's that sometimes, it’s hard to remember that before Seita lived with them, he was an urchin on the streets of Edo. He’s still a child in her mind – even the determination and deviousness he’d shown in collecting money had been childish, since despite everything, he’d still had a child’s blindness to the impossibility of obtaining what he wanted: he would have needed to rob the pockets of Sada Sada himself before he could ever have collected anything like the fee Housen had commanded for Hinowa’s time. 

He likely knows the streets of Edo better than she does, after all, for all the danger and menace that exists on them. The danger, menace, and – Tsukuyo reflects sourly as she watches Seita drag his feet on his third go-round past what she can only describe as a bookshop of ill-repute – the temptation, too.

She narrows her eyes, watching as Seita looks up and down the street, scurries towards the door of the shabby-looking place, and then, at the last minute, turns away as his courage apparently fails him and he goes to stare with great intensity at a display of persimmons in the fruit shop next door as if that had always been his intention.

Tapping the ash out of her pipe, Tsukuyo thinks that she really should go get him before he makes himself look even sillier than he does already or gets in trouble from the shop owner, since there’s no way anyone would believe for a moment that he’s even close to eighteen. But before she can move, Seita apparently draws up whatever bravery he has left within him and scuttles away from the persimmon stand and through the door of the shop.

Tsukuyo sighs, rolling her eyes as she tucks her kiseru away. Well, there’s nothing for it, then. It hadn’t been her intention to humiliate Seita, but she’s not having Hinowa dragged out to some dingy kouban after the shop owner calls the police on him. 

She, at least, is not so shame-faced and pathetic that she can’t march across the street and push open the door without dithering outside for a full half-hour. She lets the door slam shut behind her as she surveys the dimly lit room with its shabby shelves full of one-handed reading material, ignoring the men who’re openly gawking at her and looking for wherever Seita has gotten to. She grimaces. Seita is nowhere in sight; it’s all just sweaty, balding men and – and – 

“Gintoki?!”

Gintoki jumps as if he’s been jabbed with a red-hot poker, half-dropping whatever smutty literature he’s reading in his shock, before turning, eyes wide, to look at her, mouth opening and closing once or twice before he apparently finds his words.

“What the hell are you doing in here? Do you know what kind of place this is?!”

Tsukuyo crosses her arms across her chest, staring back at him. She grits her teeth, willing herself not to blush. She’s lived her entire life in Yoshiwara, for goodness’ sake – one grimy little bookshop is nowhere near enough to faze her, and besides which, _she’s_ not the one who’s been caught looking at its grubby merchandise.

“What kind of place this is?” she asks, raising an eyebrow and sweeping her gaze through the shop. “No, apparently I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

It’s fun, watching Gintoki wiggle about like a worm on a hook, at least until he apparently decides to give up on trying to provide an explanation – as if it’s not entirely obvious why he’s here – and just decides to bluster his way through it. 

“I can’t say what prurient reasons _you’re_ here for,” Gintoki blurts, puffing his chest out, “but _I’m_ here for the purpose of research and nothing else.”

“Research, huh. Of course.” Tsukuyo doesn’t bother trying to hide the way her lip curls, though to be honest, she’s more amused than anything else. This little shop, after all, with its rows of books and magazines, dim lighting and stained carpet, is really kind of quaint, and she looks around curiously, ignoring the sweaty men who’re edging nervously away from her. 

“Anyway,” she says after she’s looked her fill. “I really don’t care why you’re here. I was just wondering if you’ve seen –”

“Tsukuyo-nee! Gin-san!”

As one, she and Gintoki turn towards the sound of the horrified voice behind them – and there, sure enough, is Seita, staring at them with wide, horrified eyes, hands clutching a bundle of magazines to his chest.

Beside her, Tsukuyo hears Gintoki let out a short, sympathetic exhalation; she supposes Seita is living out every teenager’s worst nightmare right now, so perhaps the sympathy isn’t out of place. Still, she’s not about to make a big deal out of it – she’ll just drag Seita out of here before someone notices an obvious minor attempting to buy some R-18 material. 

Out of sheer curiosity, Tsukuyo lets her gaze drift down over the titles in Seita's arms – _Summer In Heat_ , _Edo Emotion_ , _Your Gaze_ – all of which, if she’s being honest, actually seem kind of sweet and definitely not the sort of thing she was expecting. Even the covers are pretty cute – 

_Wait._

Tsukuyo frowns, looking again, before reaching out and plucking one of the magazines from Seita’s sweaty hands. No, she hadn’t been mistaken – the cover _is_ very cute, with its hand-holding couple gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, lips parted, fingers tangled; they also happen to both be boys. 

“Oh,” she murmurs, suddenly feeling quite uncertain and more than a little ashamed. She hadn’t meant to force Seita into revealing something like this – it would have been better if he’d simply told them how he felt in his own time. Swallowing and feeling terribly guilty, Tsukuyo forces herself to look Seita in the eye. “Seita, I’m sor—”

“They’re for Izumi-chan!” 

Tsukuyo blinks. “Izumi-chan?”

Seita nods fervently. “She _loves_ BL. But her dad won’t buy it for her. So I said I could easily get some for her – but then I couldn’t find any in Yoshiwara. But I couldn’t _not_ get her some after I told her I would, so I – I came out here, since Gin-san told me –”

“Hey, you leave me out of this,” Gintoki interrupts him furiously. “I told you nothing of the sort. Don’t try to pass the buck on to me for this. I’m here reading morality tales! I don’t need this.”

Tsukuyo honestly doesn’t have the time or the inclination to sort out what the hell Gintoki did or didn’t say, or even what the hell he’s saying right now. Seita is staring up at her with wide, beseeching eyes – and to be honest, she _does_ believe him about Izumi. Sighing, she shakes her head.

“Fine, fine. But you know you can’t buy that yourself,” she tells him, yanking the other magazines out of Seita’s hands. She slaps them into Gintoki’s chest. “You want to make up for whatever garbage you’ve been telling him? Go pay for these.” 

Gintoki looks inclined to argue for a moment, his mouth opening, a self-righteous expression blooming across his face – but then he apparently decides that, as far as consequences for having told Seita where to buy yaoi go, this one is pretty light, and he snatches the magazines from her and heads off, grumbling, towards the counter.

Left alone in each other’s company, Tsukuyo glances down at him, while Seita looks down and kicks at the stained carpet. Finally, Tsukuyo forces herself to say, “I hope she’s worth it, Seita.”

Seita glances up at her, a blush on his cheeks. “She definitely is, Tsukuyo-nee.”

Well, she’ll just have to trust his judgement on that, Tsukuyo decides as Gintoki returns, still grumbling, with the magazines bundled up in a discreet brown paper bag.

“There. And don’t say I never do anything for you,” Gintoki says, throwing the bundle to Seita.

“All right. Now go home – _straight_ home,” Tsukuyo tells him, crossing her arms. “We can talk about the rest of this later.”

Realising just how very lightly he’s getting off, Seita only nods and makes for the door before Tsukuyo can change her mind, the little bell dingling as he yanks it open.

“They grow up so fast,” Gintoki says with a sigh as the door slams shut again. “One moment they’re picking your pocket for money to go see a high-priced courtesan, and in the blink of an eye they’re buying gay porn to impress a girl. Where does the time go?” 

Tsukuyo resists the urge to smack him – it’s been a while since she’s seen him, after all, and longer still since they shared this kind of easy camaraderie, even if she might have chosen to meet him in different circumstances than running into him in a shabby street-corner pornography store. And as such, it feels fragile, as if one wrong move will shatter it and remind them of the fact that things are different now – that _they_ are different. 

She’s already beginning to feel self-conscious in his company again; not in the way she had in the past, when he’d always managed to leave her feeling unsettled, flustered and angry for reasons she could never quite pinpoint, even though every single time she had promised herself that _this_ time she wouldn’t let herself rise to his bait. 

But no – what exists between them now is something different, a muted awkwardness that she regrets, even as she understands its source. If Gintoki has noticed, he hasn’t said anything – but one thing about Gintoki that hasn’t changed, and that she suspects _will_ never change, is that his thoughts are impossible to read when he wants them to be.

Even if he _has_ noticed, he’s probably put it down to something else – his long absence, perhaps, or his decision to leave in the first place. He wouldn’t even be wholly wrong, though he doesn’t know – he can’t _possibly_ know, Tsukuyo thinks, feeling heat creeping up her collar – everything that had happened while he’d been gone. 

It pains her to think about: whether Gintoki wonders what has changed, and whether he blames himself for it. Tsukuyo wishes she could explain it to him, but it would be impossible. It would be telling secrets that are not hers to tell, even if she too feels trapped by them sometimes. It’s for that reason she feels now like a mote of dust caught in the liquid gold of a shaft of sunlight – trapped, aimlessly floating, unable or unwilling to make a move in any direction. 

Tsukuyo is aware of the irony in it: she won’t move, and neither will Hijikata. So now they’re stuck, the three of them caught in a slow, meaningless orbit. Maybe Gintoki has the same sense when he sees Hijikata – the sense that something has changed, but not knowing what or why. 

It’s the last thought and the pain it sends sluicing through her chest that at last make her shake off her silence, even if it’s only to tell him goodbye. Or at least to hold on, even if only for one second more, to the fading feeling of the past. 

“Well, I’ll leave you to your morality tales then,” she says, eyes flicking over the corner of the book he _thought_ she didn’t notice him tucking into his yukata. “Hopefully you can learn something useful from them about not buying porn for people under the age of eighteen.”

“Hey! I only did that because _you_ asked me to do it!” Gintoki yells at her. “I would _never_ have –”

Whatever Gintoki would never have done, Tsukuyo never gets to find out, because at that moment the door is kicked open, flooding the dingy shop with late afternoon sunshine – at least until it’s blocked out by a looming silhouette – and a voice rings out through the shop: “This is an official police bust! Everyone stay where you are!”

“Oh, _fuck,_ ” Tsukuyo has time to hear Gintoki muttering, before black-clothed figures flood into the shop, and she realises Gintoki is right: it’s the Shinsengumi. 

She swallows, glancing around, looking for an exit point – it’s her own fault for not seeking one out the moment she set foot in this grimy place – but evidently Gintoki discerns her motives before she can stir an inch in any direction, his hand clamping around her wrist.

“Oh no you don’t – if I’m going down, you’re coming down with me. I’m _not_ being held responsible for this –”

“Ah. Fancy seeing you here, Danna.” 

Tsukuyo knows him, of course – Okita, the Shinsengumi first captain, gazing at them with a kind of lazy interest, hands in his pockets, his sword not even drawn. His eyes flick over the two of them.

“Buying porn with your woman? That’s nice.”

Tsukuyo bristles, the words _I’m not his woman_ crackling on the tip of her tongue – because no matter _what_ she feels for Gintoki or for anyone else, she’ll never be anyone’s woman – but Gintoki gets in first, spitting out the words, “What, so there’s a law against that now?”

“Dunno,” Okita says indifferently. “I didn’t bother reading the briefing. I’m just here because Hijikata-san told me I had to come. You can ask _him,_ if you want.”

Tsukuyo blinks, heart suddenly in her throat, but before she has time to do anything, Okita’s turning to yell _Hey, Hijikata-san_ over his shoulder before he ambles lazily away – though she’s certain she sees the flicker of a malicious smile on his face before he turns. 

Her eyes snap up, finding Hijikata immediately in the gloom of the shop, where he’s standing already half-turned towards them after Okita had called his name. She sees him blink, eyes flicking between the two of them, and then the movement of his throat as he swallows. 

To his credit, he only hesitates for a second before he comes over – if she didn’t know him, she might almost have missed the look in his eye. 

“What’re you doing here?” 

“Oh, typical,” Gintoki retorts. “Just typical. Don’t even say hello before the interrogation starts.”

“I’m not interrogating you, idiot.” He turns to her. “What’s he doing here?” 

“He says he’s reading morality tales,” Tsukuyo tells him, managing to get her words past the cold lump in her throat. This doesn’t have to be awkward, she tells herself, if she doesn’t _make_ it awkward. Whatever Hijikata’s thoughts are on finding the two of them here together, he’s having the decency to keep them off his face. 

“Right. Well, at least it’s original,” Hijikata says with a slight scoff, and he fidgets in a way that Tsukuyo knows means he wishes he had a cigarette. 

“Oi, oi!” Gintoki’s response is immediate, loud, and maybe just a bit too belligerent – or maybe he’s just belatedly located his sense of shame. “What the hell would either of you know? Who the hell just bursts in on a man during his private reading time, anyway? And I know my rights! You think you can arrest me for some innocent browsing? I haven’t even bought anything! You can’t arrest me for picking up a book out of harmless curiosity! This kind of thing isn’t even illegal, you know!”

Gintoki leans forward, aiming his tirade directly into Hijikata’s face. It’s the kind of thing Tsukuyo has seen him do a thousand times before when he’s been caught out, from the blustering harangue to the infuriated denial to the way he raises his hand to curl his fist in Hijikata’s jacket collar while he yells – and she watches, her heart stuttering a moment in her chest as Hijikata jerks his head back, eyes falling momentarily to Gintoki’s lips before they involuntarily dart across to catch her gaze before dropping away again.

 _I only came in here after Seita,_ she wants to tell him, feeling the words pressing against the tip of her tongue, fighting to leave her lips. _We’re not here together. I didn’t even know he was here_ – but she knows it would just bring up more questions than it would answer, and she swallows them down, though not without difficulty. 

“Let go,” Hijikata mutters, hand wrapping around Gintoki’s wrist and yanking it away from his collar before turning away, quiet and subdued. 

Gintoki bristles, seeming to be waiting – but Hijikata does nothing more, says nothing more, and in the moment that follows, Tsukuyo sees surprise, confusion, disbelief and… sadness, maybe, chase each other across Gintoki’s face. 

She sucks in a breath, her heart constricting. This was what she had been worried about, after all: this withdrawal, this leaving of a space that neither one of them will enter. Her pulse seems loud in her ears as she stares first at the line of Hijikata’s jaw as he turns his head away, and then at Gintoki. It’s difficult to read his face – whatever brief flash of bewilderment or unhappiness she’d seen there before is gone now. 

“I don’t give a shit what revolting filth you’re buying,” Hijikata says, voice quiet, in the silence that follows. “That’s not even why we’re here.”

“Oh? Then why _are_ you here?” Gintoki snaps, arms crossing as if Hijikata somehow _owes_ him an explanation.

“Tax evasion,” Hijikata says, jerking his thumb to where two Shinsengumi officers are leading the shop owner away in cuffs. “Going back two decades. He owes about 30,000,000 yen in back taxes.”

Tsukuyo almost feels a smile tugging at her lips. The store patrons, most of whom had dropped what they were reading or tried to bolt for the door, are now nervously hovering, fingers reaching for whatever they’d been browsing before the Shinsengumi showed up, probably hoping no one will notice if they just leave with it now that the excitement’s died down. 

“Oh. Right. A crime close to Hijikata-kun’s heart, I suppose. You can’t steal taxes if someone else has stolen them first, after all.”

“Shut up, Gintoki.” She says it more out of habit than anything else, the words coming out of her mouth almost absently. Maybe, subconsciously this time, she’s chasing after something she’s no longer sure exists. 

Gintoki snaps his head around to look at her, eyes narrowing. “What the hell? Why are you on his side? Since when have you been so chummy with the cops?” 

If there’s a name for the cold, clenched feeling that surges through her gut, Tsukuyo doesn’t know what it is, but she suddenly finds she can’t look at either of them.

“I’m not,” she eventually manages to force herself to say, though that’s far from the truth. A moment later the guilt of the lie hits her, and she licks her lips, stammering out, “I wasn’t. Before. But –” She glances desperately at Hijikata, but she already knows she’s not going to get any help from him, and not for the first time, she wishes she weren’t so terrible at this. Hinowa would have smoothed this over with a light laugh and a placid _Oh, but can’t I have my secrets?_ but Tsukuyo is stuck here, tongue-tied, watching as Gintoki’s eyes travel warily back and forth between her and Hijikata. 

“Well. Anyway,” Gintoki says after a long, uncomfortable moment, “I don’t know what you two have planned for the rest of your day, but I have an actual job, involving actual work that’s not harassing innocent citizens simply trying to go about their business.” 

“Fine,” Hijikata snaps – he’s found his voice again at least, Tsukuyo thinks, a little sourly. “Go then – don’t wait for my permission to stop cluttering up the scene of an investigation.” 

Gintoki’s mouth is already twisting into a scornful sneer, even as he seems to rev in neutral for a moment, as if looking for something to say. “Do I have to explain everything to you? I can’t go out the front door, can I? I’m a well-known local business owner; I can’t be seen in such disreputable company.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Tsukuyo snaps, narrowing her eyes, her fingers twitching reflexively for her kunai.

“Will you relax?” Gintoki says, jerking his thumb at Hijikata. “I was talking about him.” 

She wants to laugh – both at Gintoki and at the furious expression that plasters itself across Hijikata’s face. For a moment, she almost feels it again – the brush of something she was worried had been lost, something that had slipped through her fingers, even as she’d made a conscious decision to let it go. As it is, she can feel the smile that twitches at the corners of her lips, as Hijikata lets out a put-upon sigh and grabs Gintoki’s upper arm.

“Fine then. If it means you’re leaving, then come with me.”

Gintoki makes the usual noises of protestation as Hijikata starts dragging him through the shop towards the back, but he doesn’t actually resist. He looks over his shoulder at her, yelling, _Some help_ you _are,_ which Tsukuyo takes as enough of an invitation to follow them out into the dank back end of the shop, where Hijikata shoves open the back door and propels Gintoki through it. 

The tepid early spring sunlight seems bright after the dimness of the shop, and, following them out, Tsukuyo blinks, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The alley is narrow and grubby, filled with combustible rubbish and stacks of old boxes, but at least it’s a relief to be out of the shop. Hijikata lights a cigarette almost immediately, and though Tsukuyo would very much like a smoke of her own, she resists the urge to take out her kiseru. 

“There,” Hijikata barks. “Happy?” 

“Not really,” Gintoki retorts, as he rearranges his yukata into its usual disarray, but he doesn’t follow this up with anything, and he doesn’t make a move to leave, either. She can feel it herself: the hesitancy, the reluctance to leave that hangs in the air. 

Turning away, leaving, means breaking this tenuous sense of the return of something lost, something she thought she’d never have again. It’s not the same and it never can be, but it’s close enough to it that Tsukuyo can’t bring herself to let it go yet. The sunlight feels warm on her skin, and despite the grimy surroundings, she wishes suddenly that she could remain here a moment longer and then a moment longer after that – caught in this bubble of time, outside of everything that has happened over the past two years, and everything that’s changed. 

But it can’t last.

“Well,” Gintoki says eventually, beginning to turn away. “Like I said, I have an actual job –”

She glances up at him, not even certain what she plans to say, if anything, and her eyes fall on the book still tucked into his yukata from when he’d shoved it there before going to buy Seita his BL magazines.

“Hey, Gintoki – are you planning on paying for that?” she asks him, reaching out for it. It’s clear from the blank look on his face that Gintoki’s forgotten he ever had the book in the first place, which gives her enough time to pluck it from where it rests against his chest, fingers quick, a sudden daring playfulness darting through her. She’d never describe herself as _playful,_ ever, but she can’t help but smile as Gintoki lets out an outraged _Oi!_

“I already told you! They’re morality tales! Written with the honest motive of warning innocent citizens of the dire consequences of engaging in licentious behaviour, so that they know not to do it!”

“Morality tales, huh,” Tsukuyo says, flicking through the book. Oh – it’s an old-style thing, she realises, and it seems for once that Gintoki hadn’t even been lying: they _are_ morality tales of a sort, written under the old censorship laws, where people could write and publish racy stories as long as there was some kind of Heaven-sent punishment meted out at the end, so they could claim they were telling people how _not_ to live their lives for the betterment of society. 

“Yes! Obviously it has to describe the lewd behaviour in a lot of detail, so people know if they’re engaging in it or not, and if they are, they can stop,” Gintoki insists as he makes a grab for the book – but she’s too fast for him, jerking it away from his grasping fingers. 

She hears Hijikata’s snickering laugh from over to her left, and the sound sparks something in her – some mischievous spirit she never thought she’d have. 

“Well, let’s find out, then,” she says, planting her palm on Gintoki’s forehead and keeping him at arm’s length while he flails. With her other hand, she opens the book at random, reading out, “ _We must watch ourselves indeed, lest we end up like those who ignore Heaven’s decrees! I speak of course of the ne’er-do-well Budayuu. With his skills, he could have made his way honestly, but he instead chose a life of drunkenness and lazy ways, and spent his time in gambling dens and shameless profiteering._ ” She glances at Gintoki, raising an eyebrow. “It’s like it knows you.”

“Honestly, Yorozuya, if I thought you’d absorb any of it, I’d fork out for the disgusting thing myself as an early Christmas present,” Hijikata says, lighting another cigarette. “But knowing you, it’d be a waste of money.”

“Why are you ganging up on poor Gin-san? How is this fair?” Gintoki has rarely sounded so indignant, but Tsukuyo ignores him – this is actually quite fun. 

“ _Budayuu was also known to visit courtesans,_ ” she goes on reading, “ _and one in particular, with whom he spent his time carousing, keeping the neighbourhood awake with their fuss and violence. This courtesan was known to have a temper as foul as the gutter in the heat of summer when she drank and would without provocation throw knives at the heads of those who displeased her –_ ” Vaguely, Tsukuyo is aware that Gintoki has stopped flailing around quite so much, and she blinks, something in her mind tugging a distant warning. But she ignores it.

“— _One would have thought with a mistress so terrifying as this, Budayuu would have behaved himself, but such were his lusts that they could not be satisfied with a woman alone, and thus, he took up with a corrupt police official, a man known as a demon in the town, who would finance Budayuu’s misdeeds. You would expect that two such fearsome companions would have torn the villain Budayuu to pieces in their rage on discovering each other – but as it happened, something far more infamous occurred – and –_ uh – _on realising what had happened, the three great villains – set up – they set up house together, all three, and lived in scandal and ignominity – and –_ ” 

Tsukuyo finds herself stumbling to a halt in her reading, her tongue suddenly feeling thick in her dry mouth. She tries to swallow, feeling heat creeping up her neck. She keeps her eyes glued to the page, not sure what to do – stopping here seems like a bad idea, but to keep on reading seems somehow worse. Who on earth wrote this?! 

Finally managing to swallow, she glances up before she can stop herself. Hijikata is staring at the wall, his face turned away, though she can see smoke rising from the end of his cigarette; Gintoki is staring up at the sky, face unreadable, though he’s given up trying to get the book back. She's not stupid enough to have missed what she read, or to make a guess as to why Gintoki had been reading it, even as her mind seems to skirt around it. 

“Uh, if you read on, they all get trampled by oxen in the end,” Gintoki says, after clearing his throat. 

Tsukuyo isn’t exactly sure what he expects her to say to that – and she doesn’t especially want to be holding onto this book anymore either. In the end, she closes it, holding it out to him like she’s passing him the corpse of a rat she’s dangling by its tail. 

“Oxen, you say,” she eventually manages to get out, as if she’s remarking on the weather. “Well. That’s too bad.” And then, stupidly, “I hope it was worth it.”

She knows the feeling that hangs in the air – the potential that’s just waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to reach out and take hold of it. It had been there so many times in the moments when Gintoki had hesitated before he turned away from her, telling her he’d see her around; it had been there when Hijikata had told her he was leaving Edo, before he walked out into the crowded Yoshiwara street. She’d never reached for it. She doesn’t know if she ever will. But it’s tempting to remain here, in the moment before she turns away, when the possibility still remains alive and crackling in the air. 

A cold whisper of reality creeps up her spine, but she ignores it, meeting Gintoki’s eyes as he shrugs, before he quickly looks away again. “Well. Oxen are pretty heavy. It’d probably be over quickly, at least.” 

It startles a laugh out of her, short and sharp, and she watches as Gintoki looks down at the book in his hands before he swallows and holds it out to Hijikata. “Here, take it – I’m not giving you an excuse to get the handcuffs out. Go inventory it to pay off that guy’s tax debt or whatever you’re planning to do with it.”

Hijikata stares down at the book for a long moment before he takes it from Gintoki, muttering _Fine,_ around the half-finished cigarette in his mouth. Whatever had hung in the air before is already dissipating as Gintoki clears his throat and says he better get to work; whatever Tsukuyo says doesn’t pass through her brain, apparently, because when she thinks back over it a few seconds later, she can’t remember what it was at all. 

The only thing she does remember, later that evening as she lies awake on her futon, feeling her heart beat in her chest, is that after she had turned and walked away down the alley, she’d felt a shiver down her spine and looked back at Hijikata still standing by the back door of the shop and Gintoki halfway down the other side of the alley. She’d seen Gintoki’s same half-turn that mirrored hers, the way his head moved as he looked at her and then Hijikata – and then she’d forced herself to turn, breath shallow in her throat, her fists clenched by her sides as she’d walked into the haze of the white spring sunlight. 

**V.**

The autumn nights are too long, the moon early to rise and late to set, but even the chill in the air can’t keep the streets of Yoshiwara empty. 

Tsukuyo stands, balancing her kiseru in her fingers, watching the drifting haze of her breath as she looks out over the rooftops; the world is quiet here, though she can see the crowds in the streets below, dark, slow-moving shapes in the lurid lights of the teahouses and shopfronts. It’s strange to think, in the end, how very little has changed. 

Gintoki had come back, of course, two years older, the same as the rest of them, but somehow the time has whittled him down, reducing him – there’s a hollowness behind his eyes now, a place within him she cannot see that seems deeper even than it was before. It’s nothing she can blame him for; in fact, perhaps, it’s all too understandable. It’s not as if she doesn’t understand what it’s like to have to raise your blade to the man who raised you, fed you, saved you, no matter what it was that he later turned out to be. 

There are things it’s better to let lie, she knows, and some gulfs that understanding cannot bridge. 

It’s easier this way, perhaps – she’s not unhappy, after all. She’s not unhappy in the life she’s created for herself, walking the path she’s chosen. Yoshiwara is her home, and she doesn’t need to venture too far into Edo. Hijikata hasn’t come to see her, and she doesn’t want to run the risk of intruding. 

Or maybe it’s that she’s a coward, she thinks, as she makes her way across the roofs, through the slowly dying night. Maybe she doesn’t want to face up to the fact that whatever friendship she had thought existed hadn’t been there after all – that whatever she had imagined had died when he’d left Edo. 

Two years is a long time, after all. Tsukuyo has found peace in those two years, and there’s no reason to disturb it now. 

There’s the smudge of dawn in the sky, where once there had been only eternal night, and Tsukuyo contents herself in the knowledge that there are worse things than being alone.

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Ihara Saikaku’s _Twenty Local Paragons of Filial Impiety_ for inspiring Gintoki’s morality tales :)


End file.
